1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for attaching/detaching a mounting board unit which includes a mounting board such as a controller board for a printer or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, DTP (Desk Top Publishing) systems for outputting documents and figures prepared on personal computers or the like to printer devices, typically small-sized laser printers, have become more popular.
Such information transmission between printers and computers is performed in a predetermined format through transmission means such as a cable or optical communication.
The transmitted information is converted on the printer side into the format suitable for each printer used, to thereby produce a desired output. The conversion of information on the printer side is carried out by a controller board on which a CPU, a memory, etc. are mounted.
Such a controller board is not dependent solely on the specifications of a printer body, but is different depending on the type of OS of a personal computer used for communication, the type of a communication network, the capacity of a memory, and so on. Therefore, various types of controller boards are required in for different situations.
In view of the above, it is customary to provide extension slots in a controller board beforehand for enabling the controller board to be extended on the printer side, so that the user can extend the system configuration suitable for usage of a printer body after purchasing it.
Several extension methods for a controller board are as follows:
1. A large cover openable to attach/detach the controller board is provided on a printer body, allowing the user to open the cover and mount an additional board or memory when extending the system configuration; and
2. The controller board is guided by a guide member and, when extending the system configuration, the controller board slides out of the body for easier extension.
Of late, with more frequent needs of users to extend controller boards, the second method described above of sliding the controller board along the guide member to be attached to and detached from the body has primarily been employed because of providing more efficient extension.
On the other hand, the size of the printer body has been reduced year by year in consideration of the area required for installation, operability for users and lower cost that it is difficult to install a controller board horizontally as before. Therefore, it has been proposed to install a controller board vertically on, e.g., the back of the printer body.
However, the vertical arrangement of a controller board has the following disadvantages:
1. Because the board is guided along its upper and lower ends, a board shape must be determined in advance and the board shape once determined is hard to change;
2. With a recent increase in the amount of information to be handled, a large-capacity memory unit such as a hard disk is more often mounted directly on a controller board, with a resultant greater weight of the controller board. When such a controller board is vertically arranged in such a manner as to slide in the controller board, the board cannot support the weight of the hard disk and so on, resulting in possible warping of the board or pattern lands on the board may peel off; and
3. When the board is vertically inserted to the printer body, there is a risk that users may hurt their hands by part legs projecting from the back of the board.